Topos 75

i n t e r n a t i o n a l

75

2011

t h e

r e v i e w

o f

l a n d s c a p e

a r c h i t e c t u r e

a n d

u r b a n

d e s i g n

Sydney • New York • London

SYDNEY: a vie w BE yond THE GLIT TERING PATINA · landscapes of excellence · NAT UR A L DEVELOPMENT · ugly infr a struc ture wa its for a comebac k · networked growth · NEW YORK: RENEWA L AND PERFORM ANCE of the pa rk s · PL ANNING ON T HE WATERfront · playing on the street · protec ting the H A RBOR environment · LONDON: WELCOMe to T HE EST UA RY · a DIST RIBU TED ENERGY FU T URE · oly mpic leg ac y · beautiful flood storage · landmark trash · green grid for a green city · manipulating the marsh · green development green economy

sydney

• new

york

• london

table

of

contents

Cover: Robert Schäfer (photo)

64

LONDON: Jamie Dean

from Design for London presents

Sydney

london

S acha C oles

Jamie D ean

a network of green projects, a

network that is soon to overspread

08 Sydney

64 London

the whole of the city. Seen here

Introduction

Introduction

is a flood defence wall along the

Gollings

Thames River.

16

Redfern Park is one of many projects realized in

M ark Tyrrell

Jamie D ean

10 Future Urban Visions

68 The East London Green Grid

Balancing development and natural systems

A network approach to sustainable development

L ibby Gallagher

E leanor Fawcett, N athan Jones

16 The Evolving Urban Park

72 London’s Olympic Legacy Landscapes

Recent landscape projects bode well for the future

Lasting landscapes from temporary events

the last five years in Sydney. The future promises the

New York City Parks Department

Philipp Ebeling

further development of landscape projects.

48

Creative solutions are needed to maximize open

M arc u s Trimble

Judith LÖ sing, A ngela Spencer

21 Reconciling Barangaroo

78 Spatial Implications of Green Industries

Ideal development?

A Green Enterprise District for London

J u lian R a x worthy

Biba dow

26 Parramatta Road

84 Rubbish in, Resources out

Post-growth possibilities

Beautiful trash

C raig A llchin

William Mann

32 Sydney at 12 million

86 Upper Lee Valley

Networked city centres

Marshes, meadows and waterways: legacy landscapes

new york

Tom H olbrook

91 Energy Masterplanning and Urbanism Heat networks for distributed energy

A drian B enepe

space in New York City. On weekends, recreational

38 New York

uses now abound on the Hudson River Greenway.

Introduction

95 Barking Riverside: a Landscape Approach for Adapting to Climate Change

Development with water in mind

A manda B u rden

Lot Locher

40 Planning on the Waterfront Vision 2020 for NYC's waterfront

A drian B enepe , J eannette Compton

Protecting and popularizing these special landscapes

48 New York City´s High Performance Parks and Landscape Renewal

SYDNEY: Sacha Coles, principal of ASPECT Studios curates a

New guildlines for NYC parks and beyond

selection of writing about the future of the landscape and development in

Bridge and the Sydney Opera House in the middle ground.

54 Opening Doors for Open Space

38

NEW YORK: Comissioner Adrian Benepe from New York City's Parks and Recreation

London 2012

Robert Schäfer

a city building itself anew. Seen here is Sydney Harbour with the Harbour

4

Peter Beard

99 Estuarine Landscape

Craig Allchin

08

72

The Olympics will leave behind more than

Department brings together a selection of city-wide initiatives from a range of agencies for

memories - the creation of a lasting landscape is

the New York of today and tomorrow. Seen here is the Hudson River with New Jersey beyond.

underway with places for recreation and nature.

J anette S adik - K han

Currents 6 Topos Landscape Award 104 Competitions, Award, Calendar, Reports, Obituary

The NYC Plaza program makes public plazas from streets

110 Authors

111 Credits/Imprint

C as Holloway

56 New York Harbor: A Local Treasure

A view from NYC's Department of Environmental Protection

5

Backgrounded by industrial towers, the playful and inviting forms of the playground in Sydney Park by JMD belie the park’s function as a regional stormwater filtration site. The

The evolving urban park

park is emblematic of the new and exciting parks of Sydney, wherein style and substance meld with context.

Observations from a park bench

A vibrant set of new parks in Sydney reach for a more sophisticated understanding of their context and offer a new interpretation of the role of the contemporary park in Sydney life.

Libby Gallagher

W

hat may not be obvious to the outside viewer is that this sudden increase of public work in Sydney is as much a product of political and economic opportunity as creative agency. It is the result of a unique series of political and economic circumstances that have seen the investment in public space by a number of innovative clients and patrons.

Being in the midst of such a period, it’s often difficult to see the “forest for the trees”. This article seeks to provide a wider perspective, to explore not only the dominant elements in these new urban parks but to situate them in the past, present and future context of Sydney.

Natural context and beauty; the challenge of park design in Sydney.

With its spectacular waterfront, beaches and national parks on its doorstep, Sydney has had no real need for great urban parks and public spaces. Urban parks as the gathering places and areas of respite for city dwellers have always struggled to find their function in the city.

Daily life has been shaped around the suburban backyard and the beach rather than in public squares and urban parks. The result is a city that has a public domain more conducive to big events; as Jan Gehl noted in his 2008 study that it is, “a city that’s great for parties, but not for everyday life”.

Unlike its southern neighbours, the layout of Sydney has always been constrained by the dictates of its topography. The spectacular sandstone escarpments and deeply incised river valleys that dissect the city created a series of impenetrable natural barriers. These un-developable “left over” sites became ad hoc parks and bushland reserves. Aside from the numerous playing fields and ovals that characterize the suburbs, a large proportion of parklands and reserves have evolved as a response to physical constraints rather than conscious design.

Whilst there may be plenty of green spaces in Sydney, there has been, up until this point, an absence of what could be termed “urban” parks.

With the exception of the Hyde Park and Centennial Parklands, there are few parks in the city that could be defined not only as places of respite and beauty, but also as key civic spaces; the places where cultural life and nature meet, essential in any city.

16

17

Amanda Burden

Planning on the Waterfront Commissioner Amanda Burden leads the NYC Department of City Planning in the development of Vision 2020, which will strengthen New York’s identity as a world-class harbor city for generations to come.

40

New York City is famous for its dazzling skyline, iconic bridges, glorious parks, and grand avenues. But this global city possesses two other extraordinary physical assets: its waterfront and waterways. New York City’s waterfront is 520 miles, the longest and most diverse of any American city, which borders rivers, the Atlantic Ocean, inlets and bays, and encompasses active port areas, residential neighborhoods, wetlands, 14 miles of public beaches, and other natural areas and public open spaces. It is longer than the combined waterfronts of Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle.

New York City’s waterfront is also home to a maritime industry that supports 31,000 jobs and generates USD$1.3 billion in tax revenue, as well as 220 miles of public open space for New Yorkers and visitors to enjoy. Boat launches, historic buildings dating back to the 1700s, housing, and natural habitats for hundreds of species of birds and fish are just a sampling of what New York’s waterfront has to offer.

Since 2002, the Bloomberg Administration has transformed the City’s waterfront. Under the leadership of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, 373 acres of waterfront parks have been created, establishing neighborhood destinations such as West Harlem Piers Park in northern Manhattan

and Barretto Point Park and Mill Pond Park in the Bronx. The City has advanced other significant open space projects, including Brooklyn Bridge Park, Governors Island, Freshkills Park in Staten Island, and the Harlem River Park Greenway and East River Esplanade South, both in Manhattan. The NYC Department of City Planning has initiated rezonings in Greenpoint/ Williamsburg in Brooklyn, Hunters Point South in Queens and the Lower Concourse in the Bronx that have provided for hundreds of units of new mixed-income housing on the water through the City’s Inclusionary Housing Program. Throughout the City, waterfront communities are accommodating a growing urban population.

With these developments, the City has transformed vast stretches of long neglected waterfront land into active, vibrant, and economically productive locations. Vision 2020: The New York City Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, released in March 2011 by the Department of City Planning under the leadership of City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, builds on these accomplishments and establishes a sustainable blueprint for the City’s waterfront and waterways and a framework for action for the next decade. The goal behind Vision 2020 is to strengthen New York’s identity

Kayaking and canoeing are favorite activities in the waterways of New York City, and participants are treated to unique landscapes, seemingly in opposition to the popular conception of the metropolis.

41

Cas Holloway

New York Harbour: A Local Treasure As New York reactivates and rediscovers its waterfront, the Department of Environmental Planning works to promote and maintain the heath of waterways citywide.

Improved water quality and access have contributed to a boom in kayaking and other small-craft watersports on the Hudson, bringing a new life to the water.

56

Early settlers of what would become New York City looked out at a landscape abundant with beaver, sturgeon, oysters, and other native flora and fauna sustained by extensive wetlands and a pristine harbor. And it was natural resources that secured the City’s central role in America’s growing economy as its waters facilitated both commerce and immigration.

The population explosion that resulted is well known – beginning in 1700 the population of New York City grew from approximately 5,000 to over 2 million by 1900; and today, New York City is home to more than 8 million people, with millions more commuters every day from the larger metropolitan area. (There are, in addition, several hundred million tourists a year.) As the City grew, residents needed additional sources of drinking water and also generated significantly more waste.

At first, little effort was made to protect the land and the surrounding waterways from the negative impacts of population growth and the massive development that came with it.

For more than a century, most garbage and sanitary waste was discharged into open trenches that ran down city streets and emptied into New York City’s surrounding waterways. The effects of these discharges were not immediately apparent due to the harbor’s natural ability to assimilate waste; as a result, the City and surrounding areas were able to grow without investing in wastewater treatment. Though several epidemics forced New York City to upgrade its drinking water system in 1842 to draw water from remote Westchester County, it was not until much later in the 19th century that the need for systems to manage and treat solid waste and wastewater became obvious. By the late 1800s, the City’s network of sewers was dumping more than 600 million gallons of raw sewage into the harbor every day. Decomposing waste, industrial pollutants, and residential garbage dumped regularly made the harbor a noxious eye-

57

Eleanor Fawcett and Nathan Jones

London’s Olympic Legacy Landscapes Though the events associated with the 2012 Olympics are temporary they enable a transformation of the surrounding Lea Valley that will endure over time.

The story of London’s Olympic Park and its wider legacy of urban regeneration could be told through any number of figures and statistics: it is Europe’s largest new urban park for more than 150 years, providing over 100 hectares of new parkland and open space; it is the centre-point of the £9.3 billion investment in the 2012 Olympics – the catalyst for the arrival of more than 100,000 new residents in the Lower Lea Valley, and for a £100 million programme of public realm projects around its periphery. But this abstraction offers little clue to the real narrative unfolding in the Valley, a place of such richness and complexity that its unique character survives – and indeed shapes – even a mega-project such as the Olympics.

The Lea Valley represents a rupture in the conventional urban grain of London – an atypical landscape of the marginal and the unwanted. For over 150 years, the Valley was London’s centre of innovation and production.

Dominated by industry and utilities, the natural landscape of the river valley has been radically altered – but a form of nature, or wildness, persists within the gaps of its coarse grain industrial landscape, and along its distinctive network of rivers and canals. The Valley, which is also characterised by the severance and parcelization caused by major road and rail infrastructure, has been seen – until recently – as something of a no-mans land.

The siting of the Olympic Park within the Valley was therefore something of an opportunistic act – seizing the potential in two weeks of global sporting activity to re-address two centuries of environmental decay and social deprivation. It is a strategy that has given real priority to the making and re-making of the area’s public landscapes.

While the stadium has become the popular image of the London Olympics, the accompanying landscape-based projects have become central to the positive changes in the area.

73